Minuscule Torah scroll. [Germany, 19th century].
Ink on thin parchment, Ashkenazic Stam (Beit Yosef) script; silver, turned and engraved; cloth mantle.
Minuscule Torah scroll, one of the smallest known Torah scrolls. Written in conformity with halachah, following the Vavei HaAmudim format (most columns beginning with the letter Vav). Membranes correctly sewn together with sinews.
Written on 54 thin parchment membranes, in 264 columns, 42 lines per column.
Wound on a pair of miniature silver rollers, engraved with fine vegetal motifs, and cloaked in a colorful mantle, decorated with gilt thread.
The scroll is placed in an elegant wooden box (new), designed as a book, which serves as portable Torah ark and folding bimah (an additional cavity in the box houses the scroll, with a velvet curtain and small door with metal handle for "Opening the Ark"). A metal plaque with the verse "Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe…" adorns the front of the box.

Height of parchment: 7.6 cm; rollers: 13.5 cm; wooden box: approx. 29.5X21X8 cm (minor breaks inside wooden box). Good condition. Some stains. A few parchment membranes darkened.

Minuscule Torah scrolls such as the present one are exceedingly rare, partly due to the complexity of scribing them and the great cost entailed. Such scrolls were usually scribed for exceptionally wealthy people, such as Sir Moses Montefiore whom a Torah scroll would accompany on his travels around the world. Likewise, such scrolls were prepared as gifts for prominent rebbes, so that they could easily carry them around, just like the practice of Jewish kings, in conformance with the verse "I have placed G-d before me constantly" (see Sanhedrin 21a-22a).
This Torah scroll was auctioned at Sotheby's, New York, 17 December 2013, lot no. 109 (illustrated; appears on the front cover of the catalogue).